bearishonhouses

In the US, undergraduate bachelors degrees generally take 4 years of 'full-time' study. Associate degrees require the equivalent of two years full time study. In practice, they are often taken part time. The vast majority are awarded by 'Community Colleges' which are similar to the Colleges of FE that used to exist in the UK e.g. with much emphasis on vocational qualifications. The tuition at Community Colleges is far lower than at the lowest cost state universities and a lot of people attend a 2-year college before transferring to a 4-year college to complete a bachelor's degree.

Is this not how investments in foreign currencies are already taxed ? If you hold Euros, and sterling declines in value, tax is payable. The following year, if sterling recovers, you report a loss on your holding - that normally can only be carried forward to offset against subsequent gains (if any).

If the pension being paid were 'fair' from an actuary's point of view , it would increase if you delayed the age at which you started to take it - say from 60 to 65 (as social security payments do in the USA). This increase does not happen, and so there is an incentive for an individual to claim as soon as possible. However, the actuarial benefit of an 'additional year of service' is quite high when you are close to retirement. I have seen reference to the incremental benefit being 1/80, 1/85, or 1/75 for every year of service: I'll go with 1/80 for convenience. Assumptions: pensionable salary: £80,000 current age: 60 additional pension from working 1 extra year is final salary (£80,000) / 80 = £1,000 per year expected age at death for a retiring prof (middle class, white collar worker) 88 => period of pension payable = (88-61) = 27 years opportunity cost of funds is 0% in real terms, (use real terms since pension is index linked) employee contribution to pension fund: 10% of salary Hence, present value of anticipated additional pension benefit is 27 * £1,000 = £27,000, or 34% of salary. Employee contribution is approx 10% of salary. And so 'value of extra pension' deferring from age 60 to 61 is 24% of salary. The opportunity cost of delaying drawing down the pension for one year depends on the anticipated level of the pension. If benefit accrued to date is based on 30 years of service => 30/80 = 37.5%, and almost certainly it is better to commence draw down sooner rather than delay. If pensionable service to date is only 15 years (unlikely for most academics - but not impossible if someone moved into British academia after a career outside USS - e.g. abroad, industry) then the opportunity cost of deferring to age 61 is 19% of salary and the decision whether or not to delay is less clear. Other personal factors that increase the benefit of starting pension as soon as possible you believe you can invest at better than 0% real return your rate of time preference is higher than 0% because e.g. you have lower life expectancy than average you wish to spend a lot money (vacations) in the near future and are less concerned about the long term you do not trust the USS to continue to pay the pension as promised in future years Other personal factors that decrease the net benefit of starting pension as soon as possible you have a younger spouse who can likely continue to claim the pension for many years after you have died, and therefore expected period of payment of pension is greater. NB, I think you cannot have both benefits (that is retire early AND continue working with the benefit of valuable pension contributions) because I think that if you go back to work after retiring you will not be allowed to participate in any aspect of a defined benefit pension scheme.

My understanding is that Italy is similar. I know folks who have doctorates (economics) from top 10 schools in the US who could scarcely get a lowly position back in their home country; and even so, the position was only available because of a lot of 'whom you know' contacts.

Many of these so-called open access (open source) journals are 'pay to play'. At most decent universities, having published in them is worse than not having published at all. (e.g. a record of '2 papers in an A journal, and 2 in a B' is better than '3 papers in a C and 8 in a pay-to-play'.

This assertion is not true. There are some states in which lenders cannot pursue borrowers for a shortfall, but in most states, they can. Also, the situation is not that different in the UK since, in practice, mortgage lenders do not actually pursue borrowers for the negative equity - because borrowers typically have negligible other assets.

There are several posters on this site who apparently only recognize the aspect of ownership that is 'control of the asset'. They therefore deny that an owner of an asset subject to a mortgage is actually an owner. However, others would argue (I am one) that ownership includes the right to increases in the value of the asset and commensurately obligations to bear the losses in the value of the asset. If an individual has the benefit of the upside risk, that sounds like ownership to me. Furthermore, in cases where there is a high LTV mortgage, and the individual reasonably believes that the lender will not pursue them for the negative equity of an underwater loan that might arise on a forced sale and/or abandonment of the property, they may not even have the full downside risk. One might argue that this position, in effect a call option on the upside, is even better than ownership.

In the US, almost everyone claims to be 'middle class' - I am not sure the class below has a name, but it is those without housing/medical insurance and who would be on benefits if they were in the UK. Similarly Labor Day (first Monday in September) is a celebration of everyone who lives by selling their labour - be it street sweeper, musicians, artisans, professionals of all sorts.

If you look at the floorplan, you can see that the software does not even allow the WC to be shown as it actually is because the width of any WC is greater the space between edge of shower and the wall!

Another update from Dan Neidle https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/02/14/property118_caught/

see above

US equities alone are $50T. Mutual funds are approx $18T. You think they could not have absorbed $400m? (1 part in 125,000).

Day after move-in - with something like a plate of home made cakes or Prosecco

What I find most persuasive against him is that more than 90% of those who served in his cabinet in his first term are now on record saying that he is not fit to be president.

They did not all 'forget to bring their guns' Many have been prosecuted for having guns. And, since when are guns the only weapon that can be used in an insurrection?